The effect of gamma quanta absorption due to interaction with thermal bremsstrahlung photons of hot gas in galaxy clusters

The interaction of gamma quantum from distant sources with thermal bremsstrahlung photons of hot intracluster gas with producing electron-positron pair in case of 10 galaxy clusters is considered. It is supposed that intracluster gas in considered clusters is isothermal and electron number density may be described by β distribution with β = 2/3. It is presented that the optical depth due to considered interaction is about 10−8 — 10−.

Interstellar and Intergalactic Medium

This concise textbook, the first volume in the Ohio State Astrophysics Series, covers all aspects of the interstellar and intergalactic medium for graduate students and advanced undergraduates. This series aims to impart the essential knowledge on a topic that every astrophysics graduate student should know, without going into encyclopedic depth. This text includes a full discussion of the circumgalactic medium, which bridges the space between the interstellar and intergalactic gas, and the hot intracluster gas that fills clusters of galaxies. Its breadth of coverage is innovative, as most current textbooks treat the interstellar medium in isolation. The authors emphasise an order-of-magnitude understanding of the physical processes that heat and cool the low-density gas in the universe, as well as the processes of ionization, recombination, and molecule formation. Problems at the end of each chapter are supplemented by online projects, data sets and other resources.

Simulations of the merging galaxy cluster Abell 2034: what determines the level of separation between gas and dark matter

ABSTRACT Cluster mergers are an important laboratory for studying the behaviour of dark matter (DM) and intracluster gas. There are dissociative collisions that can separate the intracluster gas from the DM. Abell 2034 presents clear dissociative features observed by X-rays and gravitational lensing. The cluster, at z = 0.114, consists of two substructures with mass ratio of about 1:2.2, separated by ∼720 kpc. The X-ray emission peak is offcentred from the south DM peak by ∼350 kpc. Using N-body hydrodynamical simulations, we aim to reconstruct the dynamic history of the collision, reproducing the observed features, and also to explore the conditions that led to the dissociation. Our best model assuming that the collision is close to the plane of the sky, with a small impact parameter, observed 0.26 Gyr after central passage, reproduces the observed features of this cluster, such as the offset between X-ray and DM peaks, X-ray morphology, and temperatures. We explored several variations using different gas and DM concentrations for each cluster. The level of dissociation was quantified by the distances between X-ray and DM peaks, and also by the gas retention in the cluster cores. We found that the ratio of central gas densities is more important than the ratio of central DM densities in determining the level of dissociation.

Simulations of gas sloshing induced by a newly discovered gas poor substructure in galaxy cluster Abell 1644

ABSTRACT Collision events lead to peculiar morphologies in the intracluster gas of galaxies clusters. That seems to be the case of Abell 1644, a nearby galaxy cluster, composed of three main structures: the southern cluster that exhibits a spiral-like morphology, A1644S; the northern cluster seen in X-ray observations, A1644N1; and the recently discovered substructure, A1644N2. By means of N-body hydrodynamical simulations, we attempt to reconstruct the dynamical history of this system. These simulations resulted in two specific scenarios: (i) The collision between A1644S and A1644N2. Our best model has an inclination between the merger plane and the plane of the sky of 30°, and reaches the best morphology 1.6 Gyr after the pericentric passage. At this instant A1644N2 is gas poor, becoming nearly undetectable in X-ray emission. This model shows a good agreement with observations; (ii) The collision between A1644S and A1644N1. This approach did not give rise to results as satisfactory as the first scenario, due to great disturbances in density and mismatching temperature maps. As a complementary study, we perform a three-cluster simulation using as base the best-fitting model to reproduce the current state of A1644 with the three main structures. This scenario presented a good agreement to the global morphology of the observations. Thus, we find that the more likely scenario is a collision between A1644S and the newly discovered A1644N2, where A1644N1 may be present as long as it does not greatly interfere in the formation of the spiral feature.

Modelling gas evacuation mechanisms in present-day globular clusters: stellar winds from evolved stars and pulsar heating

ABSTRACT We employ hydrodynamical simulations to investigate the underlying mechanism responsible for the low levels of gas and dust in globular clusters. Our models examine the competing effects of energy and mass supply from the various components of the evolved stellar population for globular clusters 47 Tucanae, M15, NGC 6440, and NGC 6752. Ignoring all other gas evacuation processes, we find that the energy output from the stars that have recently turned off the main sequence are capable of effectively clearing the evolved stellar ejecta and producing intracluster gas densities consistent with current observational constraints. This result distinguishes a viable gas and dust evacuation mechanism that is ubiquitous among globular clusters. In addition, we extend our analysis to probe the efficiency of pulsar wind feedback in globular clusters. We find that if the energy supplied by the pulsar winds is effectively thermalized within the intracluster medium, the material would become unbound. The detection of intracluster ionized gas in 47 Tucanae allows us to place particularly strict limits on pulsar wind thermalization efficiency, which must be extremely low in the cluster’s core in order to be in accordance with the observed density constraints.

Detection of metal-rich, cool-warm gas in the outskirts of galaxy clusters

ABSTRACT We present an ultraviolet quasar absorption line analysis of metal lines associated with three strong intervening H i absorbers (with $N(\rm {{H}\,{\small I}})$ > 1016.5 cm−2) detected in the outskirts of Sunyaev–Zel’dovich (SZ) effect-selected galaxy clusters (zcl ∼ 0.4–0.5), within clustocentric impact parameters of ρcl ∼ (1.6–4.7)r500. Discovered in a recent set of targeted far-UV HST/COS spectroscopic observations, these absorbers have among the highest H i column densities ever observed in the outskirts of galaxy clusters, and are also rich in metal absorption lines. Photoionization models yield single phase solutions for the three absorbers with gas densities of nH ∼ 10−3–10−4 cm−3 and metallicities of [X/H] > −1.0 (from one-tenth solar to near-solar). The widths of detected absorption lines suggest gas temperatures of T ∼ 104 K. The inferred densities (temperatures) are significantly higher (lower) compared to the X-ray emitting intracluster medium in cluster cores. The absorbers are tracing a cool phase of the intracluster gas in the cluster outskirts, either associated with gas stripped from cluster galaxies via outflows, tidal streams or ram-pressure forces, or denser regions within the intracluster medium that were uniformly chemically enriched from an earlier epoch of enhanced supernova and Active Galactic Nucleus (AGN) feedback.

A radio ridge connecting two galaxy clusters in a filament of the cosmic web

Galaxy clusters are the most massive gravitationally bound structures in the Universe. They grow by accreting smaller structures in a merging process that produces shocks and turbulence in the intracluster gas. We observed a ridge of radio emission connecting the merging galaxy clusters Abell 0399 and Abell 0401 with the Low-Frequency Array (LOFAR) telescope network at 140 megahertz. This emission requires a population of relativistic electrons and a magnetic field located in a filament between the two galaxy clusters. We performed simulations to show that a volume-filling distribution of weak shocks may reaccelerate a preexisting population of relativistic particles, producing emission at radio wavelengths that illuminates the magnetic ridge.

Detection of intercluster gas in superclusters using the thermal Sunyaev–Zel’dovich effect

Using a thermal Sunyaev–Zel’dovich (tSZ) signal, we search for hot gas in superclusters identified using the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 7 (SDSS/DR7) galaxies. We stack a Comptonization y map produced by the Planck Collaboration around the superclusters and detect the tSZ signal at a significance of 6.4σ. We further search for an intercluster component of gas in the superclusters. For this, we remove the intracluster gas in the superclusters by masking all galaxy groups/clusters detected by the Planck tSZ, ROSAT X-ray, and SDSS optical surveys down to a total mass of 1013 M⊙. We report the first detection of intercluster gas in superclusters with y = (3.5 ± 1.4) × 10−8 at a significance of 2.5σ. Assuming a simple isothermal and flat density distribution of intercluster gas over superclusters, the estimated baryon density is (Ωgas/Ωb)×(Te/8 × 106 K) = 0.067 ± 0.006 ± 0.025. This quantity is inversely proportional to the temperature, therefore taking values from simulations and observations, we find that the gas density in superclusters may account for 17–52% of missing baryons at low redshifts. A better understanding of the physical state of gas in the superclusters is required to accurately estimate the contribution of our measurements to missing baryons.

Binary black hole growth by gas accretion in stellar clusters

We show that binaries of stellar-mass black holes formed inside a young protoglobular cluster, can grow rapidly inside the cluster’s core by accretion of the intracluster gas, before the gas may be depleted from the core. A black hole with mass of the order of eight solar masses can grow to values of the order of thirty five solar masses in accordance with recent gravitational waves signals observed by LIGO. Due to the black hole mass increase, a binary may also harden. The growth of binary black holes in a dense protoglobular cluster through mass accretion indicates a potentially important formation and hardening channel.